The University of California has awarded four grants totaling $2.5 million to scale up proposals that have shown potential to improve health care while delivering a return on investment to UC medical centers.
The fellowships expand proposals that already are funded by the UC Center for Health Quality and Innovation (CHQI) and that have demonstrated they can provide better care and better health with lower costs.
The grants include UC Health projects to reduce emergency room visits among psychiatric patients, expand access to specialty care, develop a tobacco cessation network, and support efforts to standardize treatment for hip and knee replacements.
“We’re excited to extend our support to proven projects so that they can be replicated across UC medical centers,” said Karyn DiGiorgio, CHQI interim director. “By scaling up transformative projects like these, UC Health will see even more improvement in the quality and value of the health care we provide Californians.”
The grants, awarded to previously funded CHQI fellows and principal investigators, are part of UC Health’s efforts to improve patient care and increase value at medical centers at UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco.
The awardees include:
- Patient-centered recovery program and emergency department community placement program: $1.2 million over two years
William Perry, Ph.D., UC San Diego
This fellowship, building on Perry’s 2011 CHQI grant, will expand to all five UC medical centers a project that provides screening, intervention and referral services to psychiatric patients with substance use disorders, with the aim of reducing the length of their stays and their return visits to the emergency department.
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- Scale-up eReferral and eConsult program: $709,000 over 18 months
Nathaniel Gleason, M.D., UC San Francisco
The eReferral and eConsult program improves coordination between primary care and specialty physicians in order to expand access and reduce avoidable in-person appointments. It aims to improve patient outcomes, save patients time, reduce out-of-pocket costs for patients and reduce the overall cost of care. Gleason received a 2013 CHQI fellowship to begin this program at UC San Francisco.
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- UC Tobacco Cessation Network: $541,000 over two years
Elisa Tong, M.D., M.A., UC Davis
This project aims to further reduce tobacco use and exposure — the leading cause of preventable death — by developing a UC Tobacco Cessation Network. Building on a pilot project that Tong started at UC Davis with a 2013 CHQI fellowship, the UC-wide network will use electronic medical records to address tobacco use and exposure at every clinical encounter.
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- Bundled payments for hip and knee replacements: $78,000 over one year
Kevin Bozic, M.D., M.B.A., UC San Francisco
Bundled payment, where providers are reimbursed a set fee for an episode of care, is a health reform aimed at improving the coordination, quality and efficiency of care. This project will build on Bozic’s 2011 CHQI fellowship to establish bundled payments for hip and knee replacements at UCSF, sharing expertise with UC Irvine and UC San Diego.
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About UC Health
University of California Health includes five academic health centers — UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco — with 10 hospitals and 17 health professional schools on seven UC campuses.
About the UC Center for Health Quality and Innovation
UC Health launched the Center for Health Quality and Innovation in October 2010. The center is designed to promote, support and nurture innovations at UC medical center campuses and hospitals to improve quality, access and value in the delivery of health care.